Originally from <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-957937.html?tag=fd_top">cnet</a>

PlayStation 2 gamers claim foul play

While Sony's online gaming experiment is only a few weeks old, PlayStation 2 gamers are already finding it helps to have a tolerance for foul play.

Players who exploit holes in games and generally annoy other players--variously known as "cheese players" or "griefers"--are demonstrating the multiple aspects of playing against human opponents rather than a game machine's processor. Live opponents make games more exciting and unpredictable, but they can also be a pain.

Take "pausers" and "quitters," a small but irritating phenomenon in the football games "NFL2K3" and "Madden NFL," among the first online titles for the PlayStation 2. Such players take advantage of features in the games that allow players to pause the action to attend to real-life distractions such as the bathroom or the fridge.

Unscrupulous players can use the feature put a game in limbo 10 seconds before they're about to lose. In many cases, the first player to disconnect is credited with the loss, an intolerable insult for honest players protective of their online ranking.

Andy Matheson, a "Madden" player from Denton, Texas, said there are numerous ways unscrupulous players can try to rob an opponent of a victory. "'Madden' has timers on the pause screen and 'play select' screen, so that people can't simply pause the game all night or not pick a play," he said. "But on kickoffs they can simply sit there and make you wait...or they can unplug their controllers, which has the same effect."

Matheson said such stunts force players to be more selective in who they play online.

"I wouldn't say it really spoils the appeal of online play," he said. "You just learn to deal with it. It doesn't really matter what game you log onto and what system it's from, there are cheese players and cheaters everywhere."

Fans of online PC games--where cheating can run rampant and ruin the game experience--are used to bad behavior.

Outright cheating is much tougher in console games, where the software resides on hack-proof disc. But there's still room for exploiting game glitches, abusing fellow players and general bad sportsmanship--behavior players getting their first taste of online play via the PlayStation 2 or Microsoft's upcoming Xbox Live are unlikely to be prepared for.

"It's an issue for anyone launching an online game," said Schelley Olhava, an analyst for research firm IDC. "How do you deal with human nature and maintain an environment that people feel is fun and fair?

"If I'm playing football against somebody, I donít want them to use some trick and mess up my rankings," Olhava said. "It kind of comes down to sportsmanship. How do you encourage good manners?"

Sony is obviously aware of the issue and does what it can to encourage good sportsmanship. One of the first messages PlayStation 2 owners see when they connect their console to the Internet is an admonition to, "Be respectful of your fellow players."

Still, Sony is finding how difficult it can be to ensure everyone plays fair. Player of "SOCOM," Sony's new online shooting game, have complained about players with dial-up Internet connections sneaking into the game, which is supposed to be accessible only to those with high-speed broadband connections. The dial-up players (known as "laggers") can turn a good game into a mess by slowing down server traffic, said Jason, a "SOCOM" player who declined to give his full name

"Players will stand still, run in place, automatically get booted," he said. "Or, if you see the laggers on the opposite team, you can shoot at them all you want but they continue to run in place...People often fall down and die for no apparent reason. It just completely disrupts the flow of the game and makes it hard to play."

A Sony representative did not respond to requests for comment.

David Cole, president of research firm DFC Intelligence, said players are likely to sort out fair play issues themselves as the online gaming audience grows.

"I think it's something that can be worked out," he said. "People get frustrated with the troublemakers, but they eventually find someone they trust. In the short term, it's going to take a while for people to get comfortable playing online. But eventually you're going to see people fall into little groups of other players they know and trust."

And most agree that the benefits of online gaming outweigh the frustrations. "The computer's AI (artificial intelligence), although good, is nothing compared to having a human opponent that can do things the computer would never do," wrote one poster in an online "Madden" forum. "The competition online is fierce, and that's why I keep coming back for more."

Trigger

09-14-02, 12:09 AM

Hope Xbox Live doesn't have as many problem players or game loopholes.

darkside

09-14-02, 12:48 AM

Originally posted by Trigger
Hope Xbox Live doesn't have as many problem players or game loopholes.

Unfortunately, people will find ways to cheat. Hopefully the abusers on both consoles will be kicked out. At least by playing you can start to learn which guys are fair players and look for them when playing online.

Scheherazade

09-14-02, 01:11 AM

I think with xbox's online strategy it'll be harder, but yeah it's going to happen no matter what you do. Being a programmer for a game online has taught me that, if not anything else. No matter how solid you build something, someone's always gonna find a way through it.

~Scheherazade

Darknight

09-14-02, 02:10 AM

A lot of the complaints listed there could easily apply to XBox Live as well. Those are issues that apply to any online gaming.

cowboy

09-14-02, 03:19 AM

I played 3 cheesers today in nfl 2k3. glad to have a pip tv so I can just watch tv for a bit. eventually, they just disconnected on me.

mr.snowmizer

09-14-02, 03:26 PM

Sounds just like Dreamcast... once the initial thrill wears off, only the masochists will still take on random people. The sane people will play mostly friends/league opponents/people known from gaming messageboards.

There'd be far less of a problem in online games if developers would just not keep track of win/loss results. Nobody believes them anyway. They should just keep track of, and publicly display, the percentage of disconnected games somebody has.

I've read that on Xbox Live, you'll be able to give feedback, almost Ebay-style, after playing someone. (If it's not true, it should be. :) ) It would be very nice to see a player's reputation before agreeing to play him.

spainlinx0

09-15-02, 01:22 AM

If that feedback is true, it would be a pretty good idea. Of course there is always the negative retaliation thing that can be done there as well, but still it might help as well. I still can't believe when I was watching my friend play Warcraft 3 online that the one kid's team had died, but he stayed and hid like 1 of his guys somewhere and trying to say the game had messed up, and he was going to sit there and not quit. It was so ridiculous, but my friend went to do something and I just searched the map with dragons and killed him. It was worth all the aggravation when we finally found his little hidden guy to see him yell
"NOOOOOOOO DON'T KILL ME!!!!!!!!"

ScandalUMD

09-15-02, 04:13 AM

Originally posted by spainlinx0
If that feedback is true, it would be a pretty good idea. Of course there is always the negative retaliation thing that can be done there as well, but still it might help as well. I still can't believe when I was watching my friend play Warcraft 3 online that the one kid's team had died, but he stayed and hid like 1 of his guys somewhere and trying to say the game had messed up, and he was going to sit there and not quit. It was so ridiculous, but my friend went to do something and I just searched the map with dragons and killed him. It was worth all the aggravation when we finally found his little hidden guy to see him yell
"NOOOOOOOO DON'T KILL ME!!!!!!!!"

It's worth it the first time it happens. But it happens a lot. Jerky players run around the map hiding farms or moon wells, so you have to scour the map to finish them off. You can literally spend half an hour cleaning up after you've essentially beaten your opponent. I wish Blizzard would patch the victory conditions to fix this problem

everlast316

09-15-02, 11:21 AM

this was one of my fears for online gaming. i don't have the adaper yet, so i'm not sure if this would work, but i think an easy way to fix this would be a rating system, similar to ebay's feedback that would allow you to see if your prospective opponent has screwed anyone before.